Ahead of sentencing hearing, B.C. chief says impacts of 2016 fuel spill still being felt

BELLA BELLA (NEWS 1130) – Members of the Heiltsuk Nation will to come face-to-face with representatives of Texas-based Kirby Corporation on Tuesday.

The company is being sentenced for its role in the spill that devastated the First Nations community almost three years ago.

But Heiltsuk Chief Marylin Slett says her community will continue to feel the emotional, cultural, and environmental cultural damage left behind, long after the sentencing hearing concludes.

The Nathan E. Stewart ran aground and spilled 110,000 litres of diesel and heavy oils into Gale Pass near Bella Bella in October 2016. The Transportation Safety Board ruled last year that a crew member missed a planned course change because he fell asleep while alone on watch.

“It’s a day that we’ll never forget,” Slett says. “It’s had devastating effects that ripple through our community and it’s families that feel it — our community bears that impact.”

The Heiltsuk Nation is a remote community with one grocery store, and people there rely heavily on the coastal waters for food and employment. The area also contains an ancient village site of great cultural importance, which has now been contaminated.

“From a community standpoint, it really feels as though the Kirby Corporation just doesn’t seem to care. Despite pleading guilty to these charges, they’re refusing to apologize to our community, and to acknowledge their civil liability causing the oil spill,” Slett says.

Kirby has pleaded guilty to three of nine counts under the Fisheries Act, Birds Convention Act and Pilotage Act. A civil case for damages filed by the Heiltsuk Nation is ongoing.

Tuesday’s hearing in a Bella Bella gymnasium will include a sentencing circle of chiefs, elders, first responders, and representatives from Kirby.

“We call on Kirby and the governments of Canada and BC to work with us, to make things right, to develop better response systems, to reform laws around compensation so that communities like Heiltsuk are not left holding the bill when there’s an oil spill,” Slett adds.

First responders to the spill claim the nation was misinformed about its seriousness and given the wrong location.

-With files from The Canadian Press